BACK TO LONDON FROM CAPE TOWN, POEM, 2006

London is dark. Back to dark London.

Grey dead skies flaking like dead skin.

Faces riveted to underground stations, passing

In torn rivers down escalators, elevators,

Refrigerated lives devoid of bare flesh, of exposure

To skin cancer through sun, the red glare

Of no sun-lotion, of mountain-climbing.

I am back to dark London, where puddles

Seep, creep beneath my feet,

Where the sky shivers and squeezes between

Building tops, where buy me, buy me,

Is the meaning of lives that pass

Hurried, past each other; no brother, sister,

Only madam, mister; faces that I try

To catch a piece of light within, only

To see it shiver, fragment, glance away

In flurried moments on the tube, on street

Corners. Like their bodies, Londoners bury

Their hearts deep within; never exposed

But tucked under layers of self, weatherproof

Clothing, and armoured minds.